Hello to all that may be following this. Sat, July 31, I fed the BG their last meal of this trial, This am, Aug 1st, I started with the hardest part, yet most enjoyable job I know of- weighing and measuring.
Let me start by saying I had intensions of running this another 30 days but as it worked out, I've had algal growth darn near close off the 1" mesh cage- 3 times during the last 25 days! I'll explain the details of how I handled that later...
I have to say a BIG THANK YOU to both PURINA and OPTIMAL for providing the goods to go as far as we could with this. I believe a big thank you is also in order for PondBoss for bringing us all to the same table to share with everyone, whether we give or take that information, I can't think of any better place than right here to do that, so Thank You to BOB LUSK and crew for giving us a place to do this!
Now, I cheated a bit on this by pulling 1 fish from each side every 3rd day to see if a pattern developed or if any major changes were occurring during this to confirm the calculations that jpsdad helped with on this and I will say that on day 20 it became obvious that the weights and lengths I was coming up with was not a fluke-on EITHER side. After weighing a few fish on the 9th day after starting the 3 day weigh, I started to think I had recorded or miscalculated something so I thought, Snipe, this is going to show up in the end and I'll get the full picture so here we go....
LH-Purina AM 500, 40 day total weight = 5,052grams, Average length = 177mm, Ave weight = 126.3g, WR = 107.93%
RH-Optimal BG, 40 day total weight = 5,288grams, Average length = 179mm, Ave weight =132.2g, WR = 108.84%
Fish had a range of 98-118% WR, really, in both sides which leads me to believe some fish are just programmed differently even within the same species.
Here's where I am still shocked at both brands... Purina, 1.53 to 1 FCR, Optimal, 1.42 to 1...!!!!!!! I've been over this figure a hundred times and in this case, I'm going to assume they were utilizing something else available in the pond system because the trial was performed "in the pond"..
There is NO LOSER here.. it's very clear that both feeds produced exceptional in my mind, I would have never guessed it would be so close!
Note on male vs Female- I had 5 northern males and 5 CNBG in each cage. Both feeds show the same results-in this case-that males achieved an ave of 2mm more length but less weight than a female of the same length. I have to assume this would be different at different times of the year, interesting none the less and I have to also assume that upon achieving a larger size this would possibly skew the other direction. I can note that the CNBG were starting to add more length and weight than the NBG were.
I have many, many, many pictures and tons of little tid bits I'd like to share-and will- but I was excited to at the least get the numbers up so we can start the discussion if anyone cares to comment or ask questions!
I should also add on Friday I had 1 mort on the Purina side that I'm sure had nothing to do with Brand X or Y. I did not skew the numbers to exclude that fish as it was the only loss so I added the average X1 to total.
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